Call After Midnight Read Online Free

to get out? I can still turn around and take you back to town.”
    “No.” She wished that Peter would come to the door and run down the steps to meet her.
    He didn’t and she and Cal went up a few steps, crossed a terrace, went up some more steps. It was an absurdly pompous approach. Jenny remembered fleetingly how Peter had laughed at its magnificence but nothing could have induced him to change so much as a single marble urn; weather-stained but pompous, the two urns stood as they always had on either side of the door.
    Blanche said, “You made a quick trip.”
    Cal said, “Hello, Blanche. You remember Jenny—”
    “Of course.” She put out a hand and pressed Jenny’s hand. “This is an imposition though, Jenny. I didn’t think Peter should send for you. But come in.”
    They entered the hall and Jenny realized vaguely that it, at least, was very changed. Cal said, “What about Fiora?”
    “She is perfectly all right,” Blanche said.
    It was what Jenny’s common sense had suggested; at the same time something hard and tight around her throat relaxed its pressure. Fiora wasn’t much hurt; there was no possibility whatever of Peter’s being charged with murder. Murder, Jenny thought with incredulity.
    Blanche said, “Fiora fainted from shock. Peter was upset. He phoned to both of you before I could stop him.”
    Cal took off his coat. Blanche said earnestly, “This is very hard for Jenny, Cal. Very embarrassing to her. Why don’t you see Peter yourself, and Jenny and I will wait till you’re ready to go back to town? I’m only thinking of Jenny—”
    “Come off it, Blanche,” Cal said pleasantly and threw his coat and hat down upon a bench. “What’s been happening? Was Fiora shot or not?”
    Blanche replied with neat precision. “It happened about midnight. Fiora had invited me for the weekend. I got here just before dinner. Afterwards we sat around and talked. Peter wanted a nightcap. Fiora went to the pantry to get some ice. They have no domestic help living in the house—there’s only a young couple, Victor and Rosa, who cook and see to the place and they live in the old gardener’s cottage. I was at the telephone here in the hall. Peter was in the library. We both heard the shot and Fiora screamed. We ran to the pantry. She was clutching her arm, backed up against the refrigerator.” Blanche shook her lovely head just a little. “Fiora said somebody had come up behind her and shot her.”
    “Who?” Cal said.
    “She says she doesn’t know. But she does have a bullet wound in her arm. We got her into the library. I bandaged up the wound. She’s sitting up drinking a highball right now.”
    “Didn’t she see who shot her?”
    “She says she didn’t.”
    Jenny found her voice. “Didn’t you send for a doctor?”
    “Oh, no,” Blanche said. “I once took a first-aid course. I knew what to do. It’s a clean wound. The bullet went right through and came out. Peter found it on the floor. Why send for a doctor?”
    “Because you and Peter will be liable for criminal negligence for one reason,” Cal said, “and because you can’t be sure that you cleaned and bandaged the wound properly.”
    “Oh, I think I did. You see, a doctor might feel he ought to report this to the police. Peter might be in for considerable annoyance.”
    But Cal said, “Why Peter?”
    Blanche touched her pink lips with her tongue. Blanche’s beauty was in her dazzling coloring, pink and white skin, luminous green eyes, and luxuriant hair, which was so black it really did have a blue tinge. Her nose was a trifle flat, her lips a trifle wide, her chin a trifle small and receding, but the over-all picture was one of brilliant beauty. She said, “Because, only Peter and I were here with Fiora. I didn’t shoot her and neither did Peter. I’d have seen him if he came out the library door and went to the pantry. I told you, I was talking over the telephone. I was talking to Art Furby, if you feel a need